Midday Edition: 24 October 2025

The Midday Edition of News Fix for 24 October 2025, straight from the Newstalk ZB newsroom - bringing you everything you need to know in news, politics, business, entertainment and sport.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good afternoon. I'm Malcolm Jordan and this is your midday
news fix for Friday, the twenty fourth of October. A
second South Island region is under a local state of emergency.
Emergency management of Minister Mark Mitchell made the declaration for
Southland at nine this morning. He says it's a precautionary
step due to concerns about the potential impacts from power

(00:24):
outages in the region. Canterbury remains under a state of
emergency as well. Around at two hundred and fifty farmers
have missed milk collection due to the weather this week,
and Fonterra is asking those affected to contact their support team.
Recovery is now the focus, but thousands of households in
wided Upper North Canterbury and Southland remain without power. Residents

(00:47):
in Kaidakey and Pines Beach are allowed to return home
after being evacuated due to high levels on the wymaka
Edi River. People in Greymouth and Kluther are asked to
conserve water, while road access to the West coast has
been restored, with State Highway seventy three now open. Fonterra's
South Island regional head Matt Cullen says farmers are used

(01:08):
to tough conditions, but this event's being particularly severe definitely
not something that we want to see on an annual basis.
We have really been hit hard or farmers across the
South Island have feltless particularly severe impact in areas like
Coloden and otarg On. Southern Police investigating the disappearance of
Tom Phillips and his children have located what are believed

(01:29):
to be the family's primary camp sites. Two large, established
and heavily concealed structures have been discovered in dense bush
surrounding Matra Corpa. Detective Superintendent Ross Mackay says inquiries to
date indicate the Phillips family moved regularly between these sites,
the makeshift camps near to Unger Road and other locations

(01:49):
around Matra Corpa. Investigators have removed a significant number of
items from the camps, which are now being forensically examined.
Kiwis are living less healthy lives than those incomparable countries
and a lack of drugs as part of the problem.
That's the finding of a new Institute of Economic Research
and Medicine's New Zealand report on drug funding, which found

(02:11):
the country has the lowest investment in medicines in the OECD.
Medicine's New Zealand CEO, doctor Graham Jarvis says if the
country invested in more medicines, it would reduce the burden
on hospitals. So we're keeping very low levels of medicine's
investment and we're expecting something different to happen in the
hill system as a result of it. To us, this
really is the very definition of insanity. The Public Services

(02:35):
Commissioner isn't ruling out arbitration in his mission to seal
a deal with the unions. Thousands down tools across the education,
health and public sectors yesterday to and took to the
streets calling for better pay and working conditions. When asked
if he's in favor of arbitration, Sir Brian Roach says
he favors anything that gets to a solution that avoids disruption.

(02:58):
Here we rails gearing up for the l asked push
to get Auckland's railways ready for the City rail Link
opening with major upgrades over the long weekend. All Auckland
train services are canceled from today until Tuesday, with replacement
buses in place to sport the new Zealand men's team
Pursuit have secured bronze at the Track Cycling World Championship

(03:21):
chips in Chile. Kenyan women's marathon runner Ruth Chepngetich gets
to keep her world record despite a three year ban
for doping violations, and the White Ferns are effectively out
of semi final contention with a game to play at
the Women's Cricket World Cup. I'm Malcolm Jordan. That's your
latest news fix. We'll be back with the next update

(03:42):
at five pm from the newstalk ZB newsroom.